Everybody’s Irish!

Happy day after St. Patrick’s Day — the one day a year when everyone is Irish!

Although I do actually have Irish in my blood, I can’t say that I’ve ever been particularly fond of the traditional Irish food.  Even back in my meat-eating days, I never really found St. Patty’s Day meals  of corned beef and cabbage appealing.

BUT, as I mentioned the other day, this is a time for change…and change means that you try new things.  So in honor of the holiday (and to make up for the fact that I forgot to wear green for most of the day!), I decided to make a vegetarian St. Patrick’s Day “feast.”  In the past, my first instinct would have been to grab the veggie meat crumbles and make a Shepard’s pie, but since I am trying to limit these fake products as much as possible these days, I figured a little more creativity was warranted.  Additionally, the meal had to fit my second criteria of week night dinners — it needed to be relatively quick and simple to prepare.  The result:

Vegetarian Reuben and Colcannon…with a twist.

I have to admit that I wasn’t really expecting great things from this meal. I know that’s not a very good endorsement, but believe it or not, until last night I had never tried sauerkraut, and the only Reuben that had ever been in my life was this guy:

That being said, I’m happy to report that I was pleasantly surprised by how it turned out! Although I wouldn’t recommend this very starchy meal everyday of the week, I thought it was a good alternative to the extremely fatty (yet traditional) corned beef.

(Side note: since I didn’t have time to make everything from scratch, this meal was “sponsored” in part by Whole Foods. )

Here’s the basic rundown of what I did.  First, the Colcannon.  This dish is naturally vegetarian and is extremely easy to make.  Basically, it’s just a big mash of potatoes and cabbage (mmmmm).  Although the cabbage is traditionally boiled or steamed before being added, I wanted to give it a bit more flavor.  So while the potatoes were boiling, I sauteed it in a little bit of Olive Oil and garlic until it was tender.

For the mashed potatoes, I diced and boiled two plain old russet potatoes.  Then I added a little bit of butter (maybe only 1 TBS), some salt & pepper, and fat free Half & Half to make them creamy, and beat the whole mixture with an electric mixer.  Mixing in the garlicky cabbage actually added a lot more flavor to the dish.

I think the best part of the Vegetarian Reuben was the freshly baked rye bread.  There’s really nothing better than bread that’s so fresh that it’s still warm.  For protein, I decided to use tempeh in place of the corned beef.  I browned this in a tiny bit of EVOO (and a lot a bit of TJ’s Olive Oil cooking spray — love this stuff!).  After that, it was just a matter of layering — tempeh, then a little Swiss cheese, Thousand Island dressing, and the “icing” on the sandwich — “probiotic” sauerkraut (or at least so says the sales clerk at the store who convinced me to buy it).  I put the whole thing in the broiler on high for a few minutes to toast each side.  And that was it.  Easy as pie!

Here is the final product.  I must say that this was way too much food.  We both got a little excited preparing these sandwiches, but I actually only ate half (the other half — today’s lunch!).

I promise there are actually toppings on this sandwich besides tempeh.  I just went a little easy on the cheese/condiments.  Even so, I thought all the flavors mixed together really well.

Contrasted with EC’s sandwich (who said — “Maybe you shouldn’t put this on your blog”).  His was definitely more colorful, but I’m still convinced that mine was better.

To be fair, he is usually a very good sport and tries all my veggie creations without complaining.  Tonight was the exception.

Altogether, I’d have to say that my first “vegetarianized” St. Patty’s Day dinner was a success!  …though I did miss the green mashed potatoes and milk I used to have as a kid.

For my next post, I am going to be switching gears a little bit and talking about seaweed and sushi.  Why?  Because it may not be as vegetarian-friendly as you would think….